It's crazy to think it was only three weeks ago that Star Wars : The Force Awakens was unleashed upon planet Earth like a doomsday plague that turned everyone I know into either Dante Hicks or Randall Graves. Roughly 125 millions of you have seen it already and it has been taking such a prominent place in my everyday life, it feels like it's been there for half a year already. What could be possibly left to say about such a sweeping cultural phenomenon? I don't know, but if Star Wars : The Force Awakens has taught me anything, it's that the movie is not the end game here. There's much more for us at sake.
I'm not even going to bother recapping the storyline here. Because half of you are already familiar with it, but also because it would deprive the other half of you of one of the best things about Star Wars movies: reading the plot synopsis on the iconic John Williams theme right at the beginning. Only details you have to know are: it happens more or less thirty years after blowing up the death star, the Empire has collapsed but something similar yet darker called the First Order has emerged instead and pretty much everybody you already know and love that's not technically dead in the Star Wars universe is somewhere in this movie. That's it. I'm stopping right here. It's all you need to know before stepping in the theater.
Star Wars : The Force Awakens is a perfectly fine movie. It entertained the hell out of me for two hours, which wasn't surprising because it was co-written and directed by one of the best storyteller currently working in Hollywood, J.J Abrams. It is everything episode one, two and three weren't: a sweeping space opera in the vein of the first triology and a Shakespearean family drama that this time involves Han Solo instead of Luke Skywalker. I was expecting nothing less of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and my expectations were pretty sky high not only as a fan of the series, but as a fan of J.J Abrams' movies first and foremost.
John Boyega's character Finn was delightfully atypical for the series.
So, I have no qualms with the movie, but let's not kid ourselves here. Star Wars is not just a series of movies, it is the biggest fucking cultural phenomenon based on a fictional story Occidental society has known since the wave of suicides caused by The Sorrows of Young Werther. What bugged me about Star Wars : The Force Awakens is not the movie itself, but it's how is systematically delivered everything we expected and only that. I have my doubts that half of the script was written by Disney's marketing executives. Someone made sure that Star Wars : The Force Awakens delivered what people wanted to see in that movie * in order to drive a maximum of people in theaters in order to strategically introduce characters we're going to be bombarded with over the next decade or so.
Don't get me wrong, this could've been worse. The franchise would've died a meaningless and embarrassing death in the uninterested hands of creator George Lucas and Star Wars : The Force Awakens feels like a legit second generation product to the richest Hollywood legacy, not unlike what Star Trek : Deep Space Nine was to the original run. We're at the crossroads though. We're about to get pelted with Star Wars products like a goddamn meteor shower. Star Wars : The Force Awakens was fine, but it could've been better. Disney is after our money, so let's vote with it. Let's demand absolute excellence from now on. Let's never settle for a mediocre yearly Star Wars movie.
Ever.
I'm being hard to follow here. Should you see Star Wars : The Force Awakens? Yes, you absolutely should. It's not reinventing the wheel, it's a little sheepish of the iconic first trilogy and the, but it has legs of its own and it does quietly try a handful interesting things, notably featuring Finn, a character who experienced both the dark and the light side. See it for yourselves, form your own opinion. You're not being a sheep, you're preparing for the next decade of mainstream entertainment and for the future of the biggest franchise in film history. I have one foot in the new Star Wars bandwagon, but there's not a lot of weight on it. I'll tell you one thing though, I am going to see Rian Johnson's episode next year.
* And what people wanted to see looked at lot like the first trilogy.
Don't get me wrong, this could've been worse. The franchise would've died a meaningless and embarrassing death in the uninterested hands of creator George Lucas and Star Wars : The Force Awakens feels like a legit second generation product to the richest Hollywood legacy, not unlike what Star Trek : Deep Space Nine was to the original run. We're at the crossroads though. We're about to get pelted with Star Wars products like a goddamn meteor shower. Star Wars : The Force Awakens was fine, but it could've been better. Disney is after our money, so let's vote with it. Let's demand absolute excellence from now on. Let's never settle for a mediocre yearly Star Wars movie.
Ever.
I'm being hard to follow here. Should you see Star Wars : The Force Awakens? Yes, you absolutely should. It's not reinventing the wheel, it's a little sheepish of the iconic first trilogy and the, but it has legs of its own and it does quietly try a handful interesting things, notably featuring Finn, a character who experienced both the dark and the light side. See it for yourselves, form your own opinion. You're not being a sheep, you're preparing for the next decade of mainstream entertainment and for the future of the biggest franchise in film history. I have one foot in the new Star Wars bandwagon, but there's not a lot of weight on it. I'll tell you one thing though, I am going to see Rian Johnson's episode next year.
* And what people wanted to see looked at lot like the first trilogy.
